Loaches Online Forum

First the good news. I picked up "Curly Q" from angelfish83 the other day and he's doing great. Here you can see his rather unique markings and the asymetrical top view in reflection (left).



His "curly" barbels are OK now, but are definitely shorter than normal.



Compared to another one.....



They're starting to look more histrionica like now and getting the whitish metallic sheen in the body.





OK.....now the bad news I heard a funny noise coming from the tank and investigated. The Aquaclear 150 on the back of the tank was buzzing.
I checked it and it was flowing OK. So I figured there was a bit of plant in the impeller. So i get out my mini stepladder and switch off the filter and remove the sponge. Then I noticed that the intake strainer had fallen off.
I removed the intake tube and there was the noise......a somewhat torn apart loach. Dammit! I felt such an idiot. The strainer isn't a stock Aquaclear unit and I thought it was secure. So I cleaned out the filter andfitted another strainer to the intake that I had to heat up in order to squeeze it over the tube. Now it's well tight.
I did a water-change just in case there was any yuck from the fish's body parts.

Angelfish gave me some bogwood and I decided to put that in the tank to give the fish more cover. So I stripped out the minimal decor from before.
I can find only 4 fish .
6-1 =5. I've searched everywhere and absolutely no trace. The only thing I can figure is that it somehow jumped and the crispy critter is down the back of the solid oak chest of drawers the tank stands on

So I'm figuring that the fish gods are yanking my chain when I see one of the others isn't looking too hot. What do you reckon to this?



It's like the mucus coat has visibly lifted on the front half of the fish and his dorsal also looks the same. He's eating, scrapping as normal.....does the loachy dance with the others, but every so often slows down and looks unhappy. I'm wondering if he got sucked against the filter intake or something like that? He was OK before that incident happened.

Frustrating If it's a disease problem, it's a good verification for having a Q-tank that's for sure. I put some Melafix in the tank as a precaution.

Martin.

I have seen the same thing happen with Altum angels. I think this fish will perish. I have not been able to cure whatever it is that makes a fish look like this.

Thats not looking like any kind of disease to me that fish just looks like it was stuck somewhere for a very long period of time, struggled to get loose, and finally did so, causing the severe damage to its fins, and scraping the frong half of itself so badly that its having that reaction now. I don't think it'll die. Those things have satan on their side, evil little buggers, they'll pull through

Sorry one of them is Kentucky fried loachen now...

I hope the MIA one is just doing a houdini impression like curly did.

Remember- i stripped down to gravel- no curly, then SHAZAAM!! There he was!

If it makes you feel any better my tangs are not doing very well.

Two julies have dropped dead like flies.. And everything else is showing an intense shock reaction... Delayed pH shock perhaps who knows...

I can imagine these will pile on the weight if their food interest is only Blood's. I vant yoor blood

The other chap looks like he's been through the wars alright.

martin i had a similar problem with some young discus about a year ago , a mate has a microscope so we did a body scrape and found it to be a form of fungus that had come through the water supply, as i use a purifier i could'nt understand why this should pass through i changed the 5micronsleeve to a 1 micron and touch wood it has not re-occured again,
i treated the fish with interpet anti-fungus and it cleared it up within the week with no losses.

mick

Martin, I hate to say it but that last fish don look so hot. Is it me or do his barbels look shorter and stumpish?

chris1932 may have something on this one. Back when I had my first loaches a modesta came down with something similar on the head and base of the dorsal. I never found out what it was. I used melafix first. No help. Then treated with antibiotics. didn't work. He acted normally for a while, then the last 2 days just laid around on the substrate looking exhausted. The next morning he was dead.

You may want to look into the fungus angle if you can...

I hope yours will recover. You certainly have a lot more experience than I did at the time.

good luck Martin

Yesterday, I got some Aquarium Products Furanase tablets from Harold.
He's looking somewhat better already, so fingers crossed that does the trick.

Martin.

Aquarium Products Furanase tablets

Martin, just out of interest, what do they do?

anyway, im glad to hear he is getting better. have you experienced much (where is the spell check botton in this wretched programme) pychotic???? behaviour from them yet?

Furanase is for used for treating Chondrococcus Columnaris (Mouth Fungus), Fin rot and tail rot Bacteria, and Saprolignia (Cotton-Wool Fungus).

Now whatever this was on this fish wasn't those per-se, but it seems to be working. today, the fish looks way better.

I haven't seen 'pschotic' behaviour, but these fish are totally manic. They are on the go almost all day. Mostly flat-out swimming up and down the tank.....nuts!

Martin.

THey sound like they're really stressed out martin... I think the copper might have had a hand in that... They were calm(er) and never swam up and down on me- until I added the copper... when I took it out they were better though